


hang for your hollow ways

by misgivings (orphan_account)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Animal Death, Gore, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-23
Updated: 2012-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-31 15:43:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/misgivings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hand on the small of his back, you get close and ask him if he wants to ditch this place, get out of here, you breathe on his neck (think how you would like to snap it). (written for a prompt on the kinkmeme, heed the warnings)</p>
            </blockquote>





	hang for your hollow ways

**Author's Note:**

> I sure do like it when everyone ends up dead. For [this prompt](http://homesmut.livejournal.com/15023.html?thread=31170479). Very much AU. Half the fun is figuring out who's already ashes, I think.

You've had a few of the more daring ones ask you how you can live with yourself. 

It's usually the girls. Pretty girls, pretty, pretty girls. 

You remember the one with milky blue eyes and hair so dark you thought it would stain your hands if you touched it. You remember how you'd broken her leg already, that she'd bitten her tongue so hard she'd bled (warm red on pale white skin, you'd held her chin, later, licked it off, savored it), that she'd been defiant, at first. Always at _first_ , never for long. Yes, you remember, she was the one—one of the ones, one of them—who's bones you broke. Such lovely bones. She'd screamed eventually, turned into a sobbing, shaking mess, just like they always did.

And she'd asked you how, how, _how_ , looking up at you with her unseeing eyes, and you'd smiled at her, just barely, the slight upturn of your lips, and nothing more.

What a funny question, a little girl sort of question, like asking why birds fly.

You just do.

.

When you're very little you find a cat, yowling and pregnant, living on the streets by the apartment building you lived in.

The stupid thing is stuck behind two trash cans, with no way to escape.

You are quiet and you walk with purpose, crouching down and reaching out a hand. She hisses at you, teeth bared, stomach fat, and part of you understands, because she is so obviously scared, so obviously vulnerable. You cannot help but understand, she is only trying to protect the few things she has—her life, her young, her territory.

But she is so small, a stray, even with the kittens growing inside her, and you barely have to apply any pressure for her skull to be crushed under the heel of your shoe. It sounds like sticks breaking when you walk through a forest, the soft squelching of something wet underfoot. You stare down at the dead thing, and you're surprised by how effortless it was. One second she was alive, and now she is not.

You only wish you'd made her scared of you, to begin with.

.

The easiest part, you've found, is picking them up to begin with.

(Your brother has always said it was the hardest part, but he'd been so bad at keeping things hidden, and you are so much better—you _have_ to be so much better.)

It doesn't bother you in the least, the fact that it's always a lie. You are slimy, snakelike, underneath, but on top, oh. You are charming, fingertips feather light on skin, like rays of sun. Enigmatic and mysterious, never smiling, never showing them your eyes.

So incredibly simple, you never have to stoop to gaudy levels, no drugging, no forcing, they always want to come with you. Away from the bar or the party or the street corner where you find them (and you try to avoid the corners, but you couldn't resist the one boy, all blushing and stammering and tasting like strawberry suckers, and he'd cried so hard, it had been so beautiful, when you'd cut into the skin just below his navel, yes, he had been worth it, just that once).

God, it's so easy, and you _hate_ easy, but it's necessary, it is.

And, really, you love it when the facade ends, when they try and run, tripping over themselves, terrified, so terrified, but they never get away. 

.

You set your sights on a boy with dark hair and tan skin, glasses and an overbite. You choose him because you like the way he talks, the way his voice rises in pitch at the ends of his sentences, and the way he pauses, sometimes, tongue moving around in his mouth like he's sucking on hard candy. He's standing with a girl with short blonde hair—and she looks too much like you, you never like it when they look like you.

You make your move when she's disappeared, probably to the bathroom, but you don't care enough to speculate, just enough to know the window of opportunity is probably slim.

He is giggling and receptive, eyes bright and alert, he tells you his name and you repeat it back to him, liking the taste of it in your mouth, short and sweet.

Hand on the small of his back, you get close and ask him if he wants to ditch this place, get out of here, you breathe on his neck (think how you would like to snap it). He's lovely up close, with long lashes and dimples, flaws gone in the low lighting of the party.

His mouth is a perfect round 'o' of surprise, lips red and eyes wide, and then he says, apologetically, no, and you stare at him, and he says no, again, says sorry, says, his girlfriend.

You shrug, it's okay, not even a problem, man.

The night is young.

.

Thirteen years old and you have you first thing to covet.

Your first human thing.

You have spines from cats and skulls from birds and tails from dogs and rats, but all those things pale in comparison to _this_.

Reverently, you lower it into stinking formaldehyde, and screw the lid on tight, let it bob for a moment, then sink, slowly, turning, turning, turning, and the eye looks at you, blue and shining, and so, so beautiful.

Fingers tracing the side of the jar, you fall asleep, as if next to a lover in bed.

.

Three in the morning, or thereabouts, and you find him again, outside in the cool night air, and he looks surprised to see you. Not many guys will go for a second chance once the girlfriend card's been thrown down, but you aren't many guys, aren't any guys.

Inside, there's a party going on, outside you touch him, fleetingly, it sounds like a teenage girl's magazine, but leave them wanting more. More of you. More of who they think you are.

The two of you talk comfortably, once you make it clear (make him think) you're not interested, not anymore, just man this is the fucking worst party I've ever had the misfortune to attend, and he laughs, and you like the way it sounds, loud and impetuous, not a care in the world. His wrists would be so easy to break, such dainty things.

He asks how you know someone named something that sounds like cars and felines, and you figure that must be who's party this, or who the party's for, anymore. You say friend of a friend, pause, of a friend, you're just here for a good time, which you're clearly not having, and he can't argue with that, especially since his girlfriend went home, she has class in the morning.

You don't say.

You imagine his bones all pretty and laid out, not clean white, but dirty. Stained with blood and bodily fluids and with strings of muscle attached, of fat and sinew.

He says, she was kind of my ride home, says, actually, says, uh, blushes and grins. Says, would you be able to help me out with that.

Of course you would.

.

One day you get caught, or very nearly so.

They find your fingerprints at the cat girl's house, and they question you for hours.

It was a silly thing, spur of the moment. Little house on the very edge of town, crawling with pretty little kitties, no one ever noticed if one or two went missing, there were too many.

You tell them you like cats, tell them you visited sometimes, not a lot, but sometimes. You didn't even know she was dead, honest, that's so awful, what _happened_?

(She'd let you into the house, made you tea, and trusted you, and you'd cut her achilles tendon so she couldn't run, she'd begged, but you'd kept her alive for hours, until she'd bled out, so stupid that you'd touched her teacup with your bare hands.)

They tell you that you don't want to know, that this all must be a misunderstanding, from what they can tell she didn't have very many friends, and you nod sagely and say that she deserved more.

(More cuts and bruises, more agony.)

.

Dark haired boy, tan skinned boy, glasses and overbite boy, he says, where are you going?

He doesn't say it scared.

You're not going the way he said to go. It's fun to do it in their homes, where they feel _safe_ , but that's where things get tricky, evidence is too easily found. Better left for somewhere else, somewhere new every time, where, by the time they find it, if they ever do, the trail has run cold. You've watched it play out enough to know this now, to know that they'll only search for a missing person for so long, the media will only talk about it for so long, they'll only hope for so long.  
They always give up, in the end.

You say, you're going to your apartment, and you say it evenly, dropping any warmth you had in your tone before.

This is when people start to panic and worry, where they reevaluate things and find that you never even told them your name.

He cocks his head to the side, smiles genuinely, says alright.

His eyes are clear, like newly cut crystal, and his hands aren't even shaking.

You echo him, alright.

Hands tight on the steering wheel, and he turns on the radio without even asking, hums along tunelessly, alright.

.

They aren't all buried, some of them are burned.

Pretty little long-haired rich boy, he burned, and and it was such a shame, he was one in a million.

Sadder still, it took weeks to get the smell out of the apartment, never again.

You still have pictures, polaroids, and your favorite is of cracked teeth you extracted from his gums while he was still halfway conscious, hips moving up towards you as you straddled him, eyes stark with fear, but arousal all the same.

Such a shame, he had to die.

.

Blue eyes has got no qualms, it seems. He's a jerk, kind of, laughing at one-off jokes you make in the sort of way that says _you're not as funny as you think you are_.

But, more than that, he doesn't start asking questions as the city thins out around you.

Just goes, I didn't eat any of the cake, and you have to think, oh yeah, the party that you two left decades ago. He didn't eat any cake at the party. He says the automobile cat will be mad about that, but he's mad about everything.

Says that word, everything, slowly, syllables drifting like smoke out of his mouth, and just as visible.

You think his mouth would look nicest bloody, and wrapped around your cock.

You say that out loud on accident, probably. Possibly.

He _hmmmm_ s at that, changes the radio station, smiles serenely, and you think the undersides of his arms look soft and smooth, ready for you to ruin them.

You wonder if this is what love is like.

.

Once, you thought you loved someone. And now she's nothing but thoughts and memories, broken ones, all of them. Her name was precious and pretty, it sounded good when you said it, almost as good as her eyes looked when they met yours.

She would sing songs to you, or maybe she wouldn't, but you like the idea of her having done so, so she did.

Fingers trailing down your sides, she'd talk about pockets full of posies, and things like diamonds in the skies.

You thought you loved her, would have written odes to her hair like ebony, if you were the type, but she left.

She left and you felt hollow, but not empty, so you couldn't have loved her, not really.

.

It's an abandoned building, construction's been halted for months now, you've made sure.

The radio is off but he's still humming along to some song in his head, a song he's written for himself.

He hasn't screamed at you to let him go or scratched at you with bitten down nails. He hasn't even stolen glances at you, when he thinks you aren't looking, and you're always looking, always watching.

He follows your lead, gets out of the car when you do, stands in the cold night air without hesitation. You get cold so easy, still not used to winter, you are ice to look at and ice to touch. Hands on his shoulders, mouth on his neck, and you whisper horrid things to him, spider fingers holding him in place. Sickly things, truly twisted things, they fall out of your mouth with a practiced cadence—six eight time, a tarantella of torture.

And he just leans back against your car, but not out of your reach, he just smiles at the night sky, says, about the stars, they're so beautiful.

Eyes on him, only for him, and you say, yes, yes they are.

.

There always comes a time when you stop ruminating over things you've done and fully focus on the things you are about to do.

.

Tan boy, pale name, and he puts his hand in yours, loosely lacing your fingers, and the curve of his lips is still upwards, still _there_.

Normally you'd have knocked him unconscious by now, hurt him in some way.

Screams and anger and fear are things you're all used to, but smiles, you don't know what to do with smiles. With no fear in his eyes. With his thumb tracing idle circles on the top of your hands. You don't know what to do with someone staying put instead of running away. It isn't a novel concept, but it still isn't one you've encountered before, not by this point.

It feels bad, leading him away from your car, it feels bad the way his hand in yours feels bad, like sticky sweat, bittersweet feelings, turning your stomach over. It doesn't feel like fingernails digging into flesh, drawing blood, or cutting at the inside of someone's mouth, making them smile forever. Those things feel good, and right now you feel bad, and you don't like it, the way that you like him.

Basement deep, concrete floor and walls and you've had things set out since the night before, all pristine perfect, ready.

You think, you have to make this right, because you don't like the way he looks at you (but you do), the sanguine smiles and the wistful words, like this is all just a dream he's having.

Safely, you can say you have never wanted to make someone scared as much as you want to make him, at this moment.

You tell him things, everything, every little thing, eyes on his throat, thinking about how nice it would look split. You tell him about the cat girl, the way you cut her open, her disgusting insides. You tell him about the boy on the corner, how his kisses tasted like strawberries or, maybe, blood. You tell him about the smell of burning flesh, thick and heady in the air. You tell him, you tell him.

He says, airily, that you're sort of, what's the word, oh, fascinating, maybe? Maybe.

You say, fascinating, and he nods, and you begin to kill him.

.

Dying boy, he starts to shiver because of blood loss, but he never screams, never whimpers.

You've burned him, sliced him, pried back fingernails, everything short of cross my heart, hope to die, sticking a needle in his eye, and still nothing. He's not quiet, not with the shivering. Not with the song that's still playing in his head.

You aren't so stupid as to carve your name in his arm, or to really operate under the delusion that you could do anything of the sort, it would be messy, and idiotic, besides. You take your time pressing your fingertips down hard on place where you've burned him, and you know that has to hurt, it has to, but he looks at the ceiling and his lower lip quivers, and that's all.

He says, I'm just so bored, but you think you might have imagined it.

When you kiss him, he doesn't quite kiss back, but he doesn't resist, either (how could he, you might think, if you were anyone but yourself, but you're not). His teeth clack against yourself, and his mouth is so dry, and so empty, it's like kissing someone who's dead. Soon enough, you suppose, soon enough.

Another fingernail, and his eyes open slowly, sluggishly.

You hate him, you say, stop it, and you take a knife, run it along the crook of his elbow, always so surprising, it takes no effort, but you see red rise out of cut flesh, anyway.

You tell him to scream, you wrap your hands around his throat, and you tell him to look at you, and he does, and—

Involuntarily, you're sure, he moves underneath you, body moving jerkily as you press your thumbs down, just above his adam's apple, and his eyelashes flutter fast as hummingbird wings underneath his glasses, clear but for specks of blood here and there.

Leaning down, you kiss the side of his neck, the place where his pulse used to be. 

.

You want him back, but now he's just another story, buried bones, and you drive home without the radio on, humming his song.

**Author's Note:**

> Didn't want to put this at the beginning and ruin the surprise of how John bit the dust, but the op for this prompt on the kmeme drew art for it, which! Wow, I can't thank them enough!!
> 
> Warning for strangling/asphyxiation/choking/blood/etc., in case any of that bothers you in picture form! If not, [here it is](http://i.imgur.com/96CFW.png) by [snuffi](http://snuffi.tumblr.com/).


End file.
